


Boy Next Door

by AnnieVH



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, M/M, Phone Calls & Telephones, empty nesting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-08 21:33:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11090361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnieVH/pseuds/AnnieVH
Summary: Gideon calls his mother, asking for an old photograph. He's been thinking about an old friend.





	Boy Next Door

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: based on a post by @likehandlingroses (you can read it [here](http://likehandlingroses.tumblr.com/post/161300338429/annievh-likehandlingroses-i-think-i-identify)).
> 
> WARNING: very mild references to possible child abuse and homophobia.
> 
> Beta: MaddieBonanaFana

 

It had been five days since they'd driven their son to New York (Adam's promises that his big brother would keep an eye on things being less than soothing) when Gideon called. She'd been forcing herself to keep texting to a minimum and to hold out all calls until at least a week had passed and it was with great relief that she heard her son's voice.

“Is everything alright, sweetie? Do you need anything? Do you need money?” she asked, already coming up with terrible scenarios in her head of how her baby could've become hurt or destitute in only five days.

“Don't offer kids money, Belle,” Adam said from the kitchen. “They always say yes.”

“Is that dad?” Gideon asked.

“Yes, he's grumpy because you're not here.”

She heard him laugh in the kitchen. “ _I'm_ grumpy? What does that make you?”

“Don't listen to him, Gideon, I'm doing fine,” Belle told him, pushing the book on empty nesting that she'd been reading away from her, just in case he wanted to video chat as well.

“Could you go into the library?” Gideon asked.

Belle gripped the phone harder. “What happened?”

“Nothing happened, mum,” her son said, and she could see him rolling his eyes. “I just need you to go into the library.”

“Okay, just... hold on.” She covered the phone with a hand and said, “Adam, I need to take this in the library.”

“Book-related emergency?” he said. “That's new.”

The few steps to the other room didn't calm her imagination. In only a matter of seconds, she'd managed to come up with a list of horrible things Gideon could've done wrong and that he didn't want his father to find out. _Dropping out of college_ and _getting arrested_ were currently at the top of her very extensive list.

“What happened?” she repeated as soon as the door closed, just as anxious as before. “Do I need to bail you out?”

“What? No! Why would I call you to bail me out?”

“It's just... You didn't want your father to hear you.”

“No! I just wanted something from the library!”

“So you're okay?”

“Everything is _fine_ , mum. New York is great. Henry is going to take me to the Statue of Liberty tomorrow.”

“So you didn't ask me to get away from your father because you think he might overreact to something?”

“To be fair, there isn't much dad _wouldn't_ overreact to.”

That didn't put her at ease but it brought a smile to her face. “That's true. If everything is fine, what do you need?”

“Do you remember Roderick?”

Belle gave herself a minute to think. Not that she needed a full minute to understand who Gideon was referring to. Roderick Hill, of course she remembered him. Small, blue-eyed, unruly black hair, a sweet disposition. He was only a year younger than Gideon and they were very attached to one another when they were children. She just didn't understand how the little boy featured in this conversation.

“Of course I remember him. He used to play with you when you were a child.”

“Yes,” was all that Gideon said to that.

“You always wanted to play knights together, that was the only thing you wanted to do when you were a child. Rosie hated it because you kept stealing her dolls so you'd both have a princess to rescue.”

“I remember.” He paused. “Didn't I dress him up as a princess once?”

“Oh, yes! Yes, you did, I have a picture... right... here...”

Belle looked around. Her personal library was not big enough to accommodate all of her books and, as her children grew up, she'd also tried to shove pictures of them and her husband on every available surface. The picture she was referring to had been displayed on the coffee table, behind a pile of old volumes. It remained one of her favorites.

“Oh, here it is. You look so cute in this one,” she said, staring at Gideon at the age of five, fully dressed as a knight and holding a plastic sword, his innocent face turned into what he thought would be a menacing scowl. Beside him, Roderick was laughing under a long, blonde wig, a ballerina skirt tied around his waist.

Mrs. Hill hadn't been too happy upon arriving and finding her son like that, running around in a girly costume. All of Belle's protests that it was okay for boys to wear dresses had fallen on deaf ears and the woman had gone as far and so say she wouldn't allow Roderick to play with in her house anymore if she thought that “this sort of thing” was normal.

Upon hearing that, Gideon had immediately apologized and insisted that it had all been his fault. Roderick had been too scared to do much more than weep quietly as he was dragged to the car. It had taken Belle a full hour to calm her son down and convince him that he'd done nothing wrong, that Mrs. Hill was just being difficult.

Gideon's fears had been unfounded, though. Mrs. Hill dropped him at their house the very next day, not even acknowledging what had happened the day before and simply claiming that she had errands to run. The Hills were not fortunate people, if the Golds wanted to babysit for free and feed their son a meal or two, they were not about to throw that opportunity away. Belle would have given her a piece of her mind if she didn't know how desperately Gideon needed his friend. Besides, she wanted to make sure Roderick's melancholy was only due to a scorning and that no one had laid a hand on him.

Looking at the picture now, Belle said, “You look so handsome as a knight.”

“Why am I a knight on every picture?” Gideon asked. “Why didn't you tell me to wear anything else, like a normal child?”

“But that would've been so boring, you had such an active imagination. And showing these to Lily was so funny.”

“I didn't find it funny,” he protested.

“That's because you're grumpy like your dad. I had a blast.”

“Yes, she wouldn't shut up about it... Can you just send it to me?”

“Should I mail it or...”

“Take a picture with your phone.”

Belle followed his instructions and, after a few attempts, managed to capture the photograph with decent quality and send it over.

“Got it?”

“Got it. That's the one I was talking about.”

“Why do you need it?... Gideon?”

“Sorry, I was looking at it. That was so long ago.”

“It wasn't that long,” she said, though her son was right. It was thirteen years ago. She'd been pregnant with Charlie at the time, and now her youngest son was a teenager.

“Roderick was cute,” Gideon said.

“He was. You liked his blue eyes?”

“I did?”

“Yes, you wanted to marry him for it.”

She giggled.

Gideon didn't.

“I wanted what?”

“You must remember it! It was the most adorable thing!” she said, and went on to tell him of how his little six-year-old self had practically skipped into the kitchen, announcing, “Mummy! Mummy! I can marry Roderick now!”

She was so used to Gideon's imagination and his endless ramblings that she'd barely paid any attention to it at first, dismissing him with an absentminded, “Is that so, sweetie?”

But then he'd said, “Yes! They let you marry boys in _Parachutes_!” and she had to look up from whatever it was that she was doing and looked at her son, and then at her husband for an explanation. Adam had been too busy shooting the whole thing with his camera phone to do much more than sign for her to egg him on.

“I'm sorry, what did you say, Gideon?”

Gideon bounced up and down, shouting, “I can marry Roderick in _Parachutes_!”

“Are you... getting married on a plane?”

“No, mummy! In _Parachutes_!”

“He means Massachusetts,” Adam explained, never putting the cellphone down. He'd told her he didn't need a fancy camera phone and that the thing would only be a nuisance but he was accumulating quite a collection of videos of their children on that thing.

“ _Yeeees_ ,” Gideon agreed. “In _Massa-chutes_.”

“Why do you want to marry Roderick?”

“Because he's my best friend, mummy! And he has blue eyes so he's pretty, like you!”

“And, uhn, who wears the white dress?”

“No one wears a white dress, mummy!” he said, snapping his tongue at her silliness. “We're both boys! We'll be dressed like daddy!” He gasped. “Rosie can wear the dress! I'll go tell Rosie!”

Once he was gone, Adam put the phone down and Belle finally got to ask, “I take it same-sex marriage is legal now?”

“In _Parachutes_ , yes,” Adam laughed. “He heard Ruby and Dorothy talking about it.”

“Not that that wasn't the cutest thing, but you better explain to your son what homophobia is before be proposes and gives Mrs. Hill a heart attack.”

However, Belle didn't have to worry about the Hills causing a fuss. The following month, they got a divorce and Mrs. Hill took Roderick to Chicago to live with her parents for a while. She didn't tell anyone that they were moving, she simply packed up their things and got on a bus, leaving her ex-husband in charge of explaining what had happened with his usual lack of tact. She hadn't left a phone number or a forwarding address.

Gideon had been inconsolable for many weeks after that but, as it always went with these things, he moved on. He made other friends in school. He even had a short-lived relationship with his then best friend Lily Malone. It wasn't until a couple of months before he left for college that he'd asked, randomly, “What do you guys think happened to Roderick?”

Adam had looked at her over dinner, neither of them knowing what to say. Belle liked to think that Roderick was alright, that he had a privileged life, same as her children. Perhaps he was dating his high school best friend too and was going to an ivy league school to study what he always wanted. She found that difficult to believe, though.

Adam had told him, “I'm sure he's fine. He must be going to college, like you.”

Gideon dropped the subject before his parents decided to be honest with him and ruin a perfectly happy mental image.

As soon as her story was finished, she heard Gideon groan with embarrassment.

“Oh god... please tell me that video is gone.”

“I'll tell your dad to look for it.”

“Please, don't.”

“Maybe we can show it at Christmas.”

“I'm not coming home for Christmas. I've just decided.”

“Yes, you are. By Christmas time, you'll be dying for some of your father's home cooked meals, a little embarrassment will be a small price to pay. Just be glad I never showed that one to Lily.”

“I'd never have heard the end of it.”

“Are you feeling nostalgic?”

“Hm?”

“The picture.”

“No, it's, uhn, I wanted to show it to a friend.”

“A _friend_ ,” she repeated, noticing the slight awkwardness of the word.

“Yes.”

“A _special_ friend.”

“No. An old one.”

“Well?”

He still took another moment to answer her and Belle decided that, if he tried to hang up the phone now, she'd pester him on every kind of social media until she got a straight answer out of him.

“It's Roderick,” he said. “He lives across the hall.”

Belle went quiet, too stunned for words.

“Roderick?” she managed to ask.

“Yes.”

“ _Your_ Roderick?”

“He's not _mine_ , mother. But yes. That one. He just moved in. I helped him carry his couch into the-”

“But it's the _same_ Roderick?” she interrupted.

“Yeah, it was kinda funny. We-”

“And he's okay?”

“He's fine.”

“How fine?”

“Tell you what, if you promise not to show that video, I'll invite him over for Christmas.”

“But he is okay,” she asked again, wanting to make sure.

“God, mum, yes! He's doing fine. He's got a job at a restaurant and he's trying to become an actor.”

“What else?”

“I don't know, we didn't talk much about him. He asked after you guys.”

“Oh, that is sweet of him.”

“Anyway, I mentioned I had that picture of him dressed as a princess and he wanted to see it. He thought it was hysterical.”

“Do you still think he's cute?”

“ _Mum_!”

“I'm just asking.”

Gideon's first answer was an outraged, “No, of course not!” but then, after a moment of silence, he admitted, “...Yeah, he's a little cute.”

Belle smiled. “You should definitely invite him over for Christmas.”

She could hear her son smirking. “Delete that video and then we'll talk.”

 


End file.
